Victorian Pathway Base?

[Chris101]

We are currently having our front garden landscaped. We plan to have a Victorian path laid in the spring once the weather improves.
Our landscaped have liaised with our tiler and have put down a steel reinforced concrete base in readiness for when the tiler comes in spring (started/completed the base on Friday 12 hours before the weather increasing got colder and we had some snow...).

The pictures attached pictures show what the base looks like.
Does it look okay and will there be any problems that it was made during the weather change?
One of the picture shows the old coal chute. Will the current base be adequate to tile over if we planned to recondition the coal chute cover and use it as a feature piece?

We are also unsure if we should be having york stone at the start of the path way or slate (which we will be using in the rest of the garden)>

*In case before any one states the path way looks like its on a gradient, it has been purposely made like this to allow wheelchair access.

 

[Dave]

The section where the coal chute is isnt suitable/stable... It should have been cast new with the new path , joints like that in substrates create expansion issues.

 

[p4ulo]

Yeah it looks alright, but as Dave says, area of coal-chute not so good.
Is the "lid" just a piece of cast iron, how thick is it? I would remove it completely so it doesn't get damaged, treat it to a drill mounted cup-wire-brush to clean it all up, then treat it with an external rated clear metal paint. Then, remove broken old base, and pour further concrete to meet with new bit. The lid can just be set into the poured concrete up to the height of the tile if you still wanted to retain it, and the tiler can then fix up to it.
(You could use this opportunity to centre the chute with the door)

 

[Chris101]

The section for the coal chute has been there since 1890 and is only around 3inches deep and then straight into the cellar.
Not sure what more we can do as it seems stable enough but the landscapers are reluctant to do anything to it andlooks as though it is wedged into the side walls for stability.

Removing that base would leave a massive deep hole into the cellar....

 

[p4ulo]

Maybe a solid concrete slab over the whole thing? However, that rules out the wheelchair access?

 

[Chris101]

Here is what it looks like underneath